The Best Trash Talk of Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor's Respective Careers

We are less than one week away from the boxing match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Jr. on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. To hype that fight, the two did a few news conferences together, and the trash talk, well, it was most certainly exchanged. Sometimes it was good, but as they tried like hell to get under the skin of the other in front of large and frothy crowds, well, sometimes it went crooked, mainly on the McGregor side.

But as we gather together, let us remember the good times, the great trash-talk work that these men have done both with each other and throughout their entire careers.

Best clips. Right here. McGregor. Mayweather. Their best vocal hits against not only the other man, but all other men. This is going to be fun.

(Warning: Language NSFW)

'Who Da F--k Is Dat Guy?'

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Has anyone heard from Jeremy Stephens since this happened? I don't think so.

McGregor's response of "Who da f--k is dat guy?" to a Stephens challenge at a news conference for UFC 205 was an instant classic. Fans still gleefully pull the reference on Twitter and elsewhere, brogue and all, when they want to express that a person or idea is not quite up to snuff.

'Mixed Martial Arts Is for Beer Drinkers'

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I'm not entirely sure what this means, but it's still funny.

Mayweather doesn't have a high regard for MMA, its fighters or its fans. This clip from 2009 hammers that home.

"It takes true skills to be in the sport of boxing," Mayweather said. "Mixed martial arts is for beer drinkers. Boxing is for everybody. You can't take my shoes off and take my shirt off and just throw me in the cage. You do that with animals. You know, you don't do that with humans."

Most experts don't give McGregor a great chance of beating Mayweather in a boxing match. If it plays out true to form, that will probably add fuel, if not actual credence, to those kinds of views, which plenty of people hold in the boxing community.

'He's in a F--kin' Track Suit!'

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One hallmark of McGregor's trash talk is the preparation. Just as he watches tape on his opponents for his fight strategy, so too does he seem to study the individual to personalize his verbal assault.

In this particular screed, McGregor looks at Mayweather and observes that "he's in a f--kin' track suit. He can't even afford a suit anymore!"

That's a clear reference to Mayweather's problems with the IRS. Apparently he's banking on the fight with McGregor to alleviate those problems.

The Irishman wasn't done. In one of the better monologues of the three news conferences to hype their fight, McGregor added this, partially in reference to the difference between boxing and MMA:

"He is f--ked! There's no other way about it. His little legs, his little core, his little head. I'm gonna knock him out inside four rounds, mark my words. ... He's fought people who have shied away from him. I don't fear him. I don't fear his limited set of fighting. This is a limited set of rules that makes this half a fight, a quarter of a fight. This isn't a true fight. If this was a true fight, it wouldn't even take one round."

A Guy Who's 'Extremely Desperate'

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Let's return again to 2009, when Mayweather appeared on CBSSports.com to talk about Shane Mosley, then just a prospective Mayweather opponent who had called him out following Mayweather's win over Juan Manuel Marquez that September.

No wild delivery or overheated smack here, but the coldness with which he takes Mosley apart is vicious in its own right (starts around 3:50 mark in the video).

"I think that Shane Mosley, a guy who's 38 [years old], with five losses, [is] extremely desperate," Mayweather said. "[He is] a former steroid user, he could still be using steroids. I think he's a guy that's just jealous, jealous of my success."

The fight was subsequently made for May 1, 2010, and, as you may have guessed since Mayweather is undefeated, Money defeated Mosley by unanimous decision.

Mystic Mac

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This wasn't so much great trash talk as it was just simply amazing.

According to OddsShark, McGregor was an underdog going into his 2015 title fight at UFC 194 with Jose Aldo, widely considered the best featherweight in MMA history.

McGregor was not an underdog in the mind of McGregor. Prior to the fight, he not only said he would defeat Aldo, but predicted the manner in which he would deliver that defeat.

"If he shows up, I feel I'll KO him inside one. ... I feel every single movement I make will get an overreaction off of him because he's emotionally invested," McGregor said, "and there's too much in it for him. ... I feel if I just [make a small movement] he will react a million times too much. So that's how I see the fight playing out. I feel him overreacting, overextending and then being [knocked out] unconscious."

The result, as we know now, was exactly that, with Aldo overextending on a punch and McGregor shutting off his lights with that cinderblock of a left hand. It only took 13 seconds to crown a new featherweight champ.

43 Floyd Mayweathers

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OK, this got a legit LOL out of me.

Mayweather's 2007 bout with Ricky Hatton was widely hyped because, at the time, Hatton, like Mayweather, was undefeated. Mayweather was 38-0, while the beloved Brit was 43-0.

Well, Mayweather didn't think very highly of being placed on equal footing with Hatton just by virtue of the 0 at the end of their records. Hence his quote about Hatton's record and the skills that got him there.

'The Weight of Them Checks'

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Let's face it: Conor McGregor is the best trash-talker in MMA history. He might be the most quotable athlete in pro sports today. He has a silver tongue if anyone ever did, and it is impossible to do a list like this without leaving plenty of great material on the cutting room floor.

His two welterweight fights with Nate Diaz—one of which he won, the other of which was taken by Diaz, himself a noted smack artist—were must-see viewing. So were the news conferences between them. Before the first bout with Diaz in 2016 at UFC 196, which McGregor lost, he was asked whether the size advantage for Diaz, a natural welterweight, would make a difference in the outcome.

"The only weight I give a f--k about is the weight of them checks," McGregor said. "And my checks are always super-heavyweight."

Yeah, that's a mic drop.

Till 'You Call Me Pretty'

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I don't think Mayweather likes Oscar De La Hoya very much.

A lot of his De La Hoya vitriol centers on topics like sexual orientation. That's not good smack talk.

But it was good when he stood face to face with De La Hoya before their fight in May 2007.

"I'ma beat you till you respect me," Mayweather said. "I'ma beat you and make you call me pretty. I'ma beat you like that."

Shades of Mike Tyson. Not the most lyrical of trash talk but one that has a sort of visceral resonance. I dig it.